Patient selection to enhance the long-term benefit of first generation drug-eluting stents for coronary revascularisation procedures. Insights from a large multicentre registry.

AIMS: To evaluate the long-term clinical outcome after drug-eluting stents (DES) implantation, and to test if patient selection could enhance their net clinical benefit.

METHODS AND

RESULTS

We assessed the incidence of major adverse cardiac events (MACE=death, acute myocardial infarction, and target vessel revascularisation, TVR) and angiographic stent thrombosis (ST) during 3-year follow-up in a prospective multicentre registry. Propensity-score analysis to adjust for different clinical, angiographic and procedural characteristics was performed. Overall, 14,115 patients enrolled in the registry received solely BMS (n=9,565) or DES (n=4,550). The incidence of definite ST was 0.6% for BMS and 1.3% for DES (p=0.003). The propensity-score adjusted incidence of cardiac death and myocardial infarction was similar between the two groups (DES 11.9% vs. BMS 12.1%, HR 0.90, 95% CI 0.77-1.04), whereas DES were associated with lower rates of TVR (DES 11.6% vs. BMS 15.2%, HR 0.67, 95% CI 0.59-0.76). The efficacy of DES in reducing TVR increased with increasing likelihood of TVR at baseline.

CONCLUSIONS

The beneficial effect of DES in reducing new revascularisations compared to BMS extends out to three years without a significantly worse overall safety profile. The benefit seems more evident in patients with the highest baseline risk of clinical restenosis.